In response to a listener’s complaint on last night’s Bulldog Hotline about how Georgia’s offense is too predictable, Mark Richt responded with this (ed. – thanks for the tireless transcription efforts of Jim from Duluth):

… CMR doesn’t like an offense that’s predictable, but sometimes that means you’re doing some things well. Sometimes people say why didn’t you keep running a play when it was working. Richt noted again we have now scored at least 30 points six games in a row. Not coincidentally a lot of that happened after AJ got back. Of course if you took Newton away from Auburn they would struggle .. same with that RB at South Carolina if you took him out. Richt gave examples of how having AJ opened things up for other receivers in the Auburn game.

We could’ve been a little more patient running the ball in this game if it had not become such a scoring battle. We didn’t stay with the run quite as much because we were trying to move the ball when we got behind.

This, in a nutshell, is what drives me crazy about Georgia’s offense. Richt and Bobo are bipolar. On the one hand, Richt recognizes that if something keeps working, you don’t abandon it if the other guy’s defense can’t stop it.

Something like this.

The downfield passing game was there. As I mentioned before, when the dust settled in the first quarter, Murray was averaging better than twenty yards per pass attempt. (Even in the late third quarter, he was getting more than 22 yards per completion.)

And yet, for some inexplicable reason, Richt regrets “not staying with the run quite as much”. They just can’t help themselves.

When Georgia went up 21-7, I looked at my friend and said, “if they can trade touchdowns the rest of the game, Georgia will win.” Auburn was going to get its points; it was Bobo’s task to hold serve. Unfortunately, only one side recognized that. It’s why Auburn elected to open the second half with an onside kick. Georgia elected to run a play out of the Wildcat. From such decisions are 18-point losses made.

66 responses to “Playing the cards you’re dealt.”

Once Georgia got up 21-7, Richt and Bobo apparently thought the aggressive part of the day was over. They tried to put the hammer down again in the second half, but they never were able to get fully adjusted to what Auburn was doing, and once Auburn was up by two scores, they were able to pin their ears back and start making Murray’s life hell (illegally).

My two biggest complaints in the football game were both centered around your point, Senator, that Auburn recognized what kind of game they were in and Georgia apparently didn’t. UGA never seemed to acknowledge the fact offensively that they were going to have to score every time they touched the ball. Complaint #1 was when Georgia got the ball at the end of the first half with about :50 and a full complement of time outs. Did UGA try to run the one-minute drill and get close enough for Blair Walsh to try a long one? Of course not. Richt just sat on the ball. That’s a wasted possession, and as we ultimately learned, we didn’t end up getting the ball to start the second half as we’d anticipated. Of course, Richt would probably point out that we’d all take a 21-point tie at halftime if it was offered before the game. But what that ignores is that *none* of us would take that 21-point tie at halftime if you pointed out that we’d have to blow a 14-point lead in order to get there, and waste scoring chances.

My second complaint came when Richt chose to kick the field goal instead of going for it on 4th down in the second half. To me, that was the ballgame. Sure, I stayed in my seat because I knew it was probably possible to stop Newton and get the ball back again. But, let’s face it, we weren’t stopping that offense in the second half. They’d made their adjustments, and our guys were blowing assignments. That was the game. Auburn knew what was going on, and Georgia just kind of stuck its head in the sand and said, “aw, the defense will come up with a stop at some point.”

It’s about aggression. Georgia was the aggressor in the first quarter, and you saw what happened. Auburn was the aggressor (literally and figuratively) from that point on, and you saw what happened.

I agree – I’ve been critical of the “play not to lose philosophy”, but I think you should ALWAYS defer. Assuming you don’t give up an onsides kick (crazy assumption, huh?), it’s always huge to start the 2nd half with the ball, imo.

I still don’t get this complaint. They ran the ball effectively in the first quarter and hit some long passes. They ran the ball a little less effectively in the second and could not hit passes down the field when they attempted them, partially because their line was getting blown up and Murray was scrambling for his life. I obviously couldn’t see what Auburn was doing in the secondary as the game progressed, but they must have made some adjustments. Green wasn’t running open behind the entire defense after the first quarter, certainly.

After the first quarter, they didn’t run the ball effectively, as you note. Yet they were still getting the ball downfield successfully through the end of the third quarter. Had I been Bobo, I would have abandoned the run until Roof adjusted – and if he never did, I would have been able to keep up on the scoreboard better.

They were there sometimes, but in the fourth they barely ran the ball and the passes weren’t there. That, or Murray couldn’t get them off. Once Auburn started scoring on every possession, the offense would have had to play perfectly for the rest of the game to be in it, and they couldn’t. I don’t think it was because Bobo took his foot off the throttle. Auburn was simply good enough to get a handful of stops and let their offense win it.

Auburn admitted they went away from single coverage and rolled a safety over AJ. In other words, they decided to do what everyone else has done all year long, and UGA’s offense went from prolific to regular again.

I think the Senator makes fair points, but ignores the adjustments Auburn made. The run was working in the first quarter, too.

The run only worked because the pass opened it up. They couldn’t do anything to stop the pass and the few runs we reeled on in the first were because of that. We should have kept throwing the ball instead on switching over to the run in teh second quarter. You could feel the air come out of the sails with those first two plays after we were up 21-7. The runs right into the gut. Everyone that I was with watching the game commented on Bobo’s decision to ‘create balance’ or ‘not abandon the run’ while neglecting to go for the jugular which would have been the most appropriate thing to do at that point. We had them in our grasps and they could not stop the pass yet in that one series you could tell we had already taken our foot off the gas. I still thought we could win at that point but once the score knotted at 21-21 I knew the game was over.

I agree with that assessment but tell me you didn’t feel like the tide was changing after that 3 and out. It’s like we weren’t trying to run up the score… which should have been the exact mindset all game. It felt like Bobo was complacent with the 14 pt lead and that we would continue to get a few stops here and there and stay ahead. I wouldn’t have been comfortable with at 21 pt lead and assumed they can score just that much in less than 10 mins at any time.

I think he called plays he thought would work. He probably figured at 2nd and 5 Smith would catch them off guard and get at least close to the first down if it didn’t go for a big gain. I don’t think he went into a shell. They just weren’t as successful executing similar plays that were called in the first. Aside from the Wild Dawg play.

But yes, it did feel like the momentum was shifting. Georgia was also a little lucky to be up 21-7 in the first place. Two drops killed Auburn in the first quarter.

It would be beyond ridiculous for someone to sit here and harp on perceived poor defensive coaching in a game we lost 10-3, that’s basically how ridiculous it is for you guys to be so hung up on offensive coaching in a game where our defense yielded 49 points and 450 + yards. We all knew our offense was not going to be able to “hold serve” against an offense with the best player in the country at QB, we had to have multiple turnovers and stops to give us a realistic chance of winning. We had one turnover and no stops in the last 40 + minutes of the game, that finished us off right there. I like you guys but sometimes I think you must have grown up on the West Coast and were raised not on the SEC but on the old WAC conference of the 80’s where 80-120 combined points per game was the norm and defense a foreign concept.

While you have a reasonable point, playing against the strongest offense in the land, you can’t count on your defense to help you out much. Maybe play aggressive and play high risk/return football and hope for a turnover or big play.

Take a look at the Auburn v Arkansas game. Every single post I saw on here expected it to be just like that game. We’re a very similar team to Ark, strength and weakness wise, so why not expect a shootout of proportions like that? After all, they’re both highly ranked SEC teams, so it’s not like we’re being completely unrealistic to expect the same “every possession needs to be a score” outcome.

With the best receiver in the country, arguably one of the best QBs in the league, a great receiving TE, other options at WR that have worked this season in Durham and King, and Auburn having the worst secondary in the league, what’s wrong in complaining about not being able to exploit the matchup the entire game that had worked the entire 1st quarter. At least until they started selling out on the pass. I understand they were coming hard at Murray, but being as mobile as Murray is, I expect more bootlegs or rolling out of the pocket to buy more time to throw down the field. Maybe that happened and I’m just blocking it out of my head, but I don’t recall that being called to beat the pressure.

No one’s arguing that Bobo can’t be a great playcaller, we’re just disappointed that he can’t consistently be a great playcaller. Even if they’re rolling a safety over Green, we saw the same thing with a much better UF secondary in which Orson Charles had the game of his college career.

Allowing 49 points on defense is tbasically he equivilent of producing in single digits on offense, if we had been beaten 49-7, I’d be prepared to hear criticism’s of the offense’s play calling but we weren’t. I don’t remember how many points Arkansas scored against Auburn but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t 49. You can always second guess play calls that don’t work, if we’d have tried multiple downfield bombs in the second half that were incomplete or had been picked off Bobo would be criticized for not “mixing it up”, and being “predictable”, “first and bomb” I’ve seen that criticism many times, now he’s being criticized for “getting away from what’s working” there’s no way to win, you have to look at production, now he’s being criticized31 points and 350 yards on the road in an SEC game is pretty dang good any year in the SEC offense wise, unfortunately for the Dawgs and Bobo their is another side of the ball called defense and we didn’t play any on Saturday.

I think Arkansas scored around 45, but that was with their backup QB playing half the game. I think our offense is every bit as good as Arkansas, especially with their backup QB compared to Aaron Murray, so it’s not crazy to expect a just as good, if not better, performance out of the bunch.

Playing against the best player in college football and against a great mind like Gus Malzahan, they’re going to get their points, lots of them. Our best chance was to keep up with Auburn’s scoring and try to give our defense a chance to make big plays. Knowing that our offense is clicking hard like it was in the first quarter takes a lot of pressure off the defense and can let them go for the home run.

Knowing that, the best match up was our pass vs their pass defense. It was working well the entire first quarter and they can’t double all of our receivers. I like a one-on-one with any single receiver we put out their, unfortunately, Bobo doesn’t agree. Obviously, we didn’t have a strong chance of winning the game, but our best chance was to do what I and so many others mentioned. But then again, I haven’t been in the arena and what I say is strictly someone who watches college football from the stands.

If the other team has a great offense and a crap defense, you pretty much know you are going to be in a shootout. That means you are going to reply on your offense to keep pace, and hope your defense gets a couple of stops and turnovers.

Our defense got an INT and a couple of stops in the first half. That’s how we got a 21-7 lead. Then it is up to our offense to maintain the lead. Its that simple.

I don’t think Mark Richt has changed his philosophy as stated here one teensy whit since he started in ’01. He would constantly get a lead and then take the air out of the ball as soon as we were up by two scores. It used to drive me crazy because the games would often look closer than they actually were.

He is simply exercising what he believes is a winning philosophy, i.e., get the lead, milk the clock, let your defense hold them back. This worked for him/us in 2002-2005. But now the defense sucks, and Richt is fundamentally incapable of being aggressive the whole game.

He never has been, and we can’t win back-and-forth shootouts because of it (last year being the exception, with Arkansas and SCU). Well, with a craptastic defense, back and forth shootouts can be expected.

I understand if you are scoring 30, that should be enough if you have a competent defense (which we do), but it seems to me that the bipolar Bobo looses momentum or disappears for a quarter/half and that ultimately costs us the game overall. So Senator, in your opinion – is the “30 pts/SEC game” more important than the bipolar Bobo? Because it seems to me that we can get any coordinator to score 30 with the talent we have, but do we need to get rid of the coordinator that goes into a shell costing us games?

Honestly, it depends on the circumstances. In this case, given Auburn’s prolific offense and Georgia’s inability to handle running quarterbacks, the odds were strong that Georgia’s best chance to win was to outscore the Tigers.

What’s frustrating about Bobo is that I think he knew what he had to do Saturday to win, but wasn’t comfortable sticking with it when Georgia had so much success with it in the first quarter. He’s got the ability to be a very good coordinator, but he doesn’t trust his instincts during a game enough.

Danielson mentioned during the broadcast that Bobo told him he liked a lot of the matchups his offense had with Auburn’s defense. Where do you think Bobo saw those?

I can see it going both ways. I do think that Bobo took his foot off the gas in the second quarter after we went up 21-7. It seemed that at that point, he wanted to try to keep the ball away from Auburn as much as possible…which, given the type of offense Auburn has, isn’t a bad decision at all. They score quickly and we couldn’t stop them, so Bobo was trying to avoid a quick three and out.

I wish we had gone for the jugular and continued with the deep passes, but Auburn did change their scheme. They switched to a Cover 2 Press and started bringing seven and making our line stop them. This is what I feel you’re overlooking, here, Senator. They started doubling A.J. on just about every play, but for some reason, either Bobo or Murray wouldn’t throw to the other side of the field. I haven’t seen the numbers, but just about every pass from my untrained eye went towards Demond Washington or over the middle…we almost never threw at Neiko Thorpe. If they’re taking away the A.J. matchup by doubling him and leaving Neiko alone on the other side, then we have to throw it at Neiko to take the A.J. matchup back. Why didn’t this happen?

And one more thing about the deep balls…Aaron was throwing them perfectly. Watching those highlights, all three of those passes were play action. Remember when we used to moan and groan about the play action earlier in the year? Now we’re wishing Bobo had stuck with it. That’s the reason these playcalling arguments are tricky things. If Murray isn’t making those throws, we’re skewering Bobo for using the play action too much and going for the bombs. Look at those three plays: 4th and 2 – bomb. 1st and 10 – bomb, with three men beyond the first down marker (with AJ actually the closest of the three). 1st and 10 – bomb. If those don’t work, everyone’s angry at Bobo for not trying to get some yards on first down instead of leaving us at 2nd and 10 (or worse, turnover on downs on the 4th and 2…sound similar to the Arkansas game 3rd down call, anyone?).

I’m not trying to micromanage Bobo’s calls with the benefit of hindsight.

My argument is that going into the game, it was rational to expect Auburn to put up their season average in scoring, given Georgia’s weakness against running quarterbacks. Bobo’s mission was to find a way to keep up. On offense, Georgia had an obvious advantage in the passing game – obvious, as in look at the yardage stats and obvious, as in #8 would be the second best player stepping on the field. And, in fact, Georgia came out ripping the hell out of Auburn throwing the football. There wasn’t any point in trying to be balanced.

Heavy use of downfield passing may not be the best strategy week in and week out for Georgia, but if you believe that an OC’s number one mission is to take what the defense gives you, Bobo started out on fire and then faltered. Auburn seized the momentum in the second quarter and never looked back.

Right, I understand the obvious advantage passing the ball. You aren’t, however, giving any credit to the Auburn defense for adjusting and switching to a different coverage and pressuring Murray up front. It wasn’t just that Bobo changed the play calls, it was also that a lot of the plays were getting blown up at the line of scrimmage and Murray was running for his life. Murray made lots of good plays on Saturday, and about half of them came when he extended a play, avoided a sack, and threw the ball out of bounds. He wasn’t having to do that nearly as much in the first quarter as he was in the last three.

Roof could have adjusted all day long, but he still had a secondary that couldn’t cover the receivers. Again, Georgia had two scoring drives in the third quarter and Murray was completing downfield passes. I would have kept attacking the Tigers’ biggest weakness, but maybe that’s just me.

I agree that Bobo made some questionable calls. I would have kept attacking as well, but it wasn’t just about the secondary. The secondary obviously stepped up their coverage enough after the first quarter (see the double coverage/Neiko Thorpe thing I already touched on) but they were greatly aided by the seven guys that started regularly rushing the passer. Our line couldn’t hold up, Murray couldn’t find time to step and throw, and we saw the results.

Like I said, though, I would’ve stuck with the deep throws as well…you’re going to hit one eventually, right?

I felt all along that Roof would just keep upping the ante with the blitz, so I can’t imagine Georgia’s coaches were particularly surprised by that. And, again, Murray was still going downfield successfully throughout the third quarter.

I wouldn’t say everyone was praising the PA just because it worked. I remember thinking after the bomb to AJ ‘dear god if he keeps pulling down those D. Greene like fakes he’s going to get himself lit the fuck up and fumble’. It worked far too many times for my comfort level and I’m pretty sure if he tried the PA like that again he would have been creamed.

PA ‘like that’ meaning the ones where you totally go all in on the sell and walk away from the play

Somehow, Richt and Bobo think they’re more successful running Smith out of the gun instead of Murray throwing the ball to AJ Green or Kris Durham. I wonder if they ever really look objectively at what has worked vs. what hasn’t.

“Unfortunately, only one side recognized that. It’s why Auburn elected to open the second half with an onside kick. Georgia elected to run a play out of the Wildcat. From such decisions are 18-point losses made.”

Brutal, brutal truth here. Ouch it hurts to see it distilled like that.

I just don’t understand why we took a 180 degree offensive scheme into this game compared to Georgia Tech last year. We have essentially the same personnel in place. Tech and Auburn both had high powered offenses that were going to run up points. Defenses suspect. Our best hope was to control the ball and hope to grind out a win. Don’t get me wrong, I realize our offense was clicking in the first quarter.

I also thought Ealy was the superior runner Saturday. He was hitting it hard and driving his feet. King had a couple of nice runs, but Ealy was all power. I would have loved to see a one-two punch like the Tech game last year.

There’s always exceptions to the rule, but generally you have to out-score a team with players like Newton and OC’s like Malzahn. You can’t grind it out and eat clock – then settle for a FG. The clock just isn’t that big a factor. They can score a TD on any given play, and from anywhere on the field. Blink your eyes a couple times and they’ve got 35 points! Only a top 5 D could keep us in the game if the O was going to be conservative for 3 quarters.

That’s a great strategy, unfortunately I feel like matching one of the weakest running offenses in the league against one of the strongest running defenses is not as good of a tactic as matching one of the best passing offenses in the league against one of the worst passing defenses in the league. We haven’t been able to run effectively all year, and we clearly already showed success through the air to start the game, why try to force ourselves into what they want?

I guess one can always dream this Dawgs team has that kind of ability. I know I did before the season began. But last Saturday the only time Dawgs were a threat was when O went wide open in the 1st Qtr. Had CMB been more conservative I doubt the outcome would have been favorable to Dawgs. But hopefully Bama, the epitomy of ball control O, will prove your theory. I wouldn’t mind seeing Cam sobbing heavily a la GPOOE.

Playcalling is the most boring, and unwinnable, of all arguments in football discussions. The style offense we employ has so few plays/looks, and variations thereof, that it is almost always execution that determines success or failure. Hindsight criticsm on playcalling is simply ridiculous; coaches are geniuses or idiots depending on whether the fake punt/onside kick/reverse/screen pass/deep throw/etc., etc. work. I cannot think of one time that isn’t true.

The real debate we should be having today is on offensive schemes. One only has to watch the “new kids on the block” run those snazzy, video-game offenses and wonder how long before we have to adjust. Oregon, Boise, Oklahoma State, and last night the Eagles, make a strong case for broadening the offensive playbook. I understand the traditional view and recognize that some teams enjoy success from the pro-set, but the evidence supporting the “newbies” is growing.

I’m in total agreement with most of your stance. I think the only time you can outwardly critique the play calling is when it’s so obvious we move away from something that was working in (what seems like) order to create balance. Or in the refusal to make adjustments. These are very obvious and can/should get under the skin of fans. I understand we only have X amount of offensive plays a game and they can’t run everything a fan would like to see, but it’s pretty obvious when we just stop doing something that was working and when we refuse to adjust at halftime.

I personally thing BoBo has done pretty well for himself this season, but I cannot fathom a quarter here and there where just looked like he was just playing grab bag when we should have a) continued to pound the run or b) continue to go down field.

I agree. I still say all of this goes back to our defensive woes over the past several years. When the offense makes an error (fumble, interception, whatever) the defense hasn’t been able to bail them out. Hence Richt’s and Bobo’s tendencies to go conservative at times. Once Grantham gets the defense righted, we’ll be much better, and that 30+ ppg will increase to 40+ ppg.

AJ Green is a very special player and definitely the best WR in the country, but I personally think a redshirt sophomore Aaron Murray will come close to covering up the hole left in the receiving corps. Orson Charles has shown flashes of brilliance as well as T King (yes, it could be because AJ is drawing quadruple coverage).

You’ve got to expect that a coach like Searels can get the line working and establish a running game next year, right? Ealey has come on strong and runs like a man when he’s holding on to the ball. Hopefully he doesn’t get arrested again and leave all the momentum he gained from this season in the jailhouse like the beginning of this year.

If the run game can get back to Running Back U status we once were, it’ll give plenty of opportunity to not only open up field for the receivers, but play into the balance that Bobo can’t stray away from.

AJ is the only one leaving (though obviously that’s a huge hole). Keeping everyone else together (including the staff) will bring a lot of momentum into next year on the O side of the ball. I still think we have other playmakers, and who knows, maybe the superior O line play will show up as well.

Just a few observations. Senator you are correct that running QB’s or just roll out Qb’s have historically given UGA fits. Why then do we feel a change to the 3-4 will help this? Sure the OLB’s are in a position to stop them wide but our interior line will get ripped. Grantham has discovered by now that our D player are not the sharpest blades in the package. A 3-4 depends on everybody being smart enough to play their assignments, we have not done that as yet under Willie or Todd. As long as our DE’s, LB’s and DB’s take every fake made by the opposing team we will get killed. Look for GT to get 500+ yards next week as the UGA D plays like fire ants on a kicked mound. If we don’t man handle GT again this year and score TD’s on every position we will get beat cause the D is not going to be smart enough to play their assignments.

Our O is a T-Model Ford in a Corvette world. Sure we have been able to score a lot on hapless D’s with the best WR in college FB but we still have only beaten one team with a winning record (I’m assuming KY will have one). That is the most telling stat of the whole year. This team lacks the staying power to win close games, heck they invent ways to lose close games. Our O only words if it is executed to perfection because all of the DC’s in the SEC know what we are going to do and with Bobo they seem to know when we are going to do it. Having to achieve perfection with college kids is an impossibility. The truly disturbing thing is that most of the hi powered spread offenses are a lot simpler to run than ours. Oregon has about 10 basic plays out of a ton of multiple sets but it’s still just ten plays.
Mark will hopefully get us back to mediocre next year and be gone on his mission by 2012.

I agree with the Senator that we took our foot off the gas in the second quarter. I also agree with HailtoGA that Auburn adjusted schematically to rush Murray’s decisionmaking.

In such situations, a competent OC ideally has pass plays sporting an outlet receiver, such as a running back. If you can’t get a 40-yard deep ball, settle for dumping the ball to quick skill players with lots of running room. A bad idea would be to try to block seven while running two-man routes into four-man coverage. Another bad idea would be running the Brett Millican Sprint Draw (TM)* into the mouth of seven defenders.

We settled for two-man downfield routes and sprint draws. Even Danielson noticed the ineffectiveness of the two-man routes. Also, the first outlet pass to our running backs that I recall came in the 4th quarter (to Ealy, specifically).

HailtoGA is right — it makes no sense to micromanage each play call. Still, I just can’t lose the feeling that the second we went up two touchdowns, the urgency to put the ball in the end zone was gone. We became content to ask our players to execute plays designed to move the ball slowly forward and, if we caught a break or two, give us an extra score or two.

Note that this strategy differs from UF ’07 and Tech ’09. We ran the ball in those games because we intended to *score* by doing so. Here, we abandoned our successful scoring strategy and started calling plays not calibrated to Auburn’s defense — all in the name of clock management.

If you were a player, would you have put your blood and joints on the line to milk a clock to perfection?

* I hereby submit the BMSD for submission into the Lexicon. During my student days, Millican’s sprint draw was the play we ran to set up the play action. Millican, however, always seemed to net about 1.5 on the carry, thus rendering the play both actually and strategically ineffectual. Also, Greene’s play fake made sacrificing Millican to angry linemen every other series largely unnecessary.

I envision “BMSD” as a descriptor for any such wholly superfluous play call such as (a) a Joe Cox designed run, (b) the Stafford deep ball; (c) the 3rd-and-15 play-action fake, (d) the 2010 screen, (e) Carlton Thomas up the middle vs. the run blitz, (f) off-tackle runs against USC since 2007, (g) Brandon Smith lining up at quarterback against any SEC team, and (h) WWI’s over-the-top strategy.

“BMSD” is also an anagram of BDSM, a practice whose sensations approximate those Georgia fans experience while witnessing a BMSD executed by 4- and 5-star recruits.

Bloviation for the Dawgnation

Quote Of The Day

“I didn’t know I got criticism,” Richt quipped, feigning incredulousness. “It’s just the nature of the beast. If you can’t take criticism, then you shouldn’t coach.” -- AJ-C, 7/21/15